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Umpire Discipline
A few quick thoughts:
Sports officiating is one hell of a lot tougher than it looks. I have always held the opinion that if you can call balls and strikes well and consistently, you can do any job in officiating that requires judgment. No marked lines for up and down on the zone- which changes with every batter- and the call requires three dimensional, spatial judgment. Plus at decent levels the ball breaks a lot or comes in at 90+ mph. Plus at not-so-decent levels, you either expand your zone to call crap pitches strikes or you endure 3 hour, 10-9 walkfests every game. And fields are poorly lit. And and and. . . Baseball even recognizes how tough calling balls and strikes is with a rule protecting us from managers and players leaving their positions to argue.
Fining me for bad calls will drive me (and I am, in all immodesty, pretty damn good) off the field. If I go, you get somebody maybe not quite as good. I have bad nights (last Wednesday comes to mind- ugh!) but I am a consistently good umpire who takes the craft seriously. If I was consistently bad or mediocre at best, I would self-select out of the best assigments. Nobody wants crap on the field, least of all me. But smoking me for one bad call or even one bad game is counterproductive, I think.
On the other hand, umpire discipline should be part of every association's duties. I have drafted a somewhat-overlawyered umpire discipline code for my association. e.g.- Bet on a game you're calling? Banned for life.
So fining me for a "bad" call is a "bad" idea. Besides, how are you going to enforce it? No park I work has QuesTec or even professional photography, as a general rule.
Strikes and outs!
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